Children's Literature @ NYPL

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Visions of rides with her father keep flashing into 14-year-old Jodie’s brain. It’s hard to envision a future without him. That, and the frightening panic attacks that she avoids telling anybody about. Hopefully, no one will notice any difference in her behavior.

Jodie works at Whitehawk Farm in exchange for riding lessons. She loves the horses there, especially 14-hand chestnut Rambo, but she longs for a horse of her own. Unbelievably enough, Jodie’s mother allows her to buy a horse, but the horse she chooses at auction is wild and dangerous, a seemingly uncontrollable 3-year-old part-Arabian stallion named Samphire after the wild plant.

Jodie works with him and he becomes easier to handle. However, Jodie’s 10-year-old brother Ed needs a kidney transplant, and horses move to the background of their lives for awhile. Ed still calls her Whinny and constantly teases her about liking horses, making galloping sounds, etc.

This book somewhat reminds me of Black Beauty, in which the horse has a series of owners, as horses often do. My one criticism of the book is that it is highly unrealistic to think that a 14-year-old girl could safely handle a stallion that displays such dangerous behaviors.